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John Thune Shares What ‘Reasonable Democrats’ Are Telling Him About Shutdown

John Thune Shares What 'Reasonable Democrats' Are Telling Him About Shutdown (Screenshot/Newsmax)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Newsmax Wednesday that several moderate Democrats are quietly telling him about their desire to end the ongoing shutdown.

Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill by the Oct. 1 deadline, prompting a federal government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Thune said on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren” that Democratic leaders are facing internal pressure as the shutdown battle drags on, with a growing number of centrist Democrats quietly signaling they want a way out.

“Chuck’s in a really tough spot. I mean, he cut this deal with a lot of these left-wing special interest groups. And I think that’s unfortunate, but it is because he’s feeling pressure on his hard left. But I think there are a lot of reasonable Democrats in the middle,” Thune told Van Susteren. “I mean, we’re hearing from him, Greta. We’re hearing from through my colleagues. They’re reaching out. People want an off-ramp. They want a way out of this box canyon that Chuck Schumer has marched them into.”

Thune said that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has boxed himself in by catering to progressive activists, making it nearly impossible for him to back down.

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“I don’t know that he’s [Chuck Schumer] going to be in a position to be able to make any kind of concession, just simply because he has invested so much in trying to satisfy MoveOn.org and some of these other left-wing groups that have been controlling the actions he’s been taking in the Senate,” Thune added. “And this is the latest example of that. Up until now, he was never for this kind of thing. I mean, he was always the guy saying, ‘You know, you can’t take hostages. We need to keep the government open.'”

Thune said the Democrats are abandoning their past principles.

“Those are statements he was making in the past, and they’re statements a lot of other Democrats were making in the past who now have a completely different position when the shoe’s on the other foot. But this is all about politics,” Thune said. “The substance of this is very straightforward, keep the government open. We’ll continue the appropriations process, something we’re doing this year that they didn’t do when he was the majority leader and help to fund the government in the right way through the normal appropriations process.”

Despite some Democrats quietly telling Thune and his colleagues that they want a way out of the standoff, party leaders shut down the government to push for lower healthcare costs and have refused to back down, even after millions of Medicare beneficiaries lost telehealth and home care coverage when funding expired at midnight Wednesday. Several Democrats told the Daily Caller News Foundation they plan to stick with their hardball tactics against the president.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Newsmax)